Victors
by QueenBrooke
Summary: "What the hell am I doing here?" she demands. She doesn't want to be here. "You fell in love, Jo," is all he says. "That's why you're here." The story of how two very broken Victors fell in love.
1. Chapter 1

**I wrote this after a reviewer suggested I write a chapter about another character struggling with jealousy. I haven't wrapped my head around this girl yet, but here you go anyways. SquirrelLOVA, I hope this is (sort of) what you had in mind. **

**Tie-in with _Surviving_—while Gale and Katniss are having their talk, this is what I picture Johanna doing. **

**The Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins, not to me, though I do enjoy playing with her characters.**

Johanna Mason is pissed off. She knows that Gale loves her, and that as much as she can love anyone anymore, she loves him too. And honestly, when it comes down to it, neither of them is interested in love, per se. They're interested in survival. They're interested in fulfilling needs. And he has that down pat. He hunts, he makes money, and as for other more…_intimate_ needs she has, he's exquisite. But she's still pissed off that he _needs _to run off into the wood with Katniss Everdeen. Because, though they may be best friends, they've still got a history, and she' s never trusted Katniss farther than she can throw her.

But she lets them run off, says nothing, really, at least nothing that hints at discontent or, God forbid, jealousy. Partly because she doesn't want Gale to know just how much she needs him, how unhappy she'd be surviving on her own. Mostly because she doesn't know where she'd get off, telling him he can't be with his best friend. Their relationship simply doesn't work like that. Functional relationships, in her extremely biased and under-educated opinion, don't work like that.

So instead she wakes up Haymitch Abernathy, pulling the knife out of his hand before throwing a bucket of water on him. A trick learned from Katniss. Damn, she's thinking of that girl more now that she did in their Games. For her, falling in love has tended to bring out the same emotions as fights to the death: desperation, hope, debt, gratitude, need…

Haymitch lets out a string of uncreative expletives as he jumps out of his chair, soaking wet. She raises an eyebrow at him.

"You're gettin' old," she tells him matter-of-factly. "A few years ago, I would've had a black eye."

"Not getting old," he mutters angrily, grabbing a dirty tea towel from beside his oven. "Maybe you're getting faster, ever think of that?"

"Nope, I'm not," she explains, but she can feel a grin surfacing.

She and Haymitch have almost _too_ much in common: they both have this unfortunate tendency to mock the most serious of issues with a combination of sarcasm and wit that masks the fact that they want a happy ending just as desperately as everyone else.

"You look good," he mutters, blushing slightly. She raises an eyebrow at him.

"I'm too pretty for you," she teases. "And way too young."

She's going to break down if she accepts that he's really just saying that she looks nicer than she did the last time she saw him: covered in scars, her hair all fallen out, unable to go into battle because she couldn't handle _water._ She hopes the significance of how she woke him isn't lost on him. Of course not, nothing's lost on him after he's been mentoring those morons for so long.

"I'm not old," he snaps, and then he heads up the stairs to change into dry clothes. She looks around his disgusting kitchen and finds all kinds of food: cheese buns, croissants, meat pies, rabbit…his kids have clearly been looking after him. She's helped herself to a third brownie by the time he descends the stairs, dry but still pissed off.

"Don't remember saying you could eat my food," he mutters, joining her. She shrugs. "It's implied. I came all this way to see you." He snorts.

"Yeah, we both know you're here to see _me_," he drawls, taking a brownie as well.

"You wanna talk about him or the Capitol?"

She glares at him. "I'm not talking about him with you. You're not my mentor. And besides—"

"There's nothing to talk about?" he finishes sarcastically, mouth full of chocolate. Peeta's a pretty amazing baker; she'll give him that. It surprises her he'll go near an oven after what happened to them.

"There's not," she insists. She feels the jealousy raging in her, threatening to boil over and poison everything close to her. But she's always been a master at concealing how she feels. He snorts.

"I don't really get how I wound up with the two least feminine girls in the country," he mutters. She can tell he really wants to pour himself a drink, but he knows that if she's here, they're going up against the star-crossed lovers, and soon. He sighs.

"At least you've got Peeta," she tells him. "That boy's got some feminine tendencies." He snorts with laughter.

"Wasn't complaining," he tells her. "I like that we never have to talk about dresses or boy troubles…oh wait. I have to talk about both of those things with you two. Fuck."

"You don't swear like that in front of him, do you?" she asks, trying to keep her tone conversational. But she's started to shiver, and it's not cold in his house. He looks at her in sincere regret.

"I—I don't, no," he assures her. "I didn't know that I shouldn't."

She shrugs.

"That's a common word during the Capitol's electrocutions," she tells him, mock carelessly. As if this isn't what keeps her up at night. She doesn't know why she bothers faking it with Haymitch anymore, since he knows it all, and is so used to Katniss' less-than-verbose communication style that he watches for tells like eye twitches and shivering. Force of habit, she guesses.

"They like to tear that word out of you if they can, and I'm pretty sure they never got it out of Peeta. Made 'em try harder."

Haymitch nods.

"Pretty sure she's getting it out of him now," he mutters, and she almost chokes on the fourth brownie.

"_What_?" she asks, her body shaking with laughter. "Really? Already?" He nods, shrugging.

"I have a lot of hallucinations when I'm drunk, but none of em include those two laying on top of each other on the kitchen table." He shudders and she giggles.

"Atta boy," she mutters. "I didn't think he had it in him, after they did to him."

"Didn't think he had it in him, period," mutters Haymitch. She smirks, which was a mistake.

"So, let me have it. You been saying that word a bit yourself lately?" He raises an eyebrow at her and she blushes. She wishes she could write him off, pretend he's an old drunk who's nosing into her business, but she knows he's not. They had a bond even before Finnick died, and it's stronger now, because she needs _someone_ to be her big brother. She has people she loves now.

"I said that word a lot before him," she mutters, to give herself a few moments to think. She doesn't know why she bothered: maybe she mistakenly thought it'd get him off-topic.

"Were they a thing before?" she asks, after a pause. She considers adding the nouns for a moment, but he'll know whom, and _what_, she's talking about.

Haymitch shrugs.

"Didn't pay her a whole lot of attention before," he mutters. "She told me they weren't. The boy didn't believe her, not really. I think I did. She's a terrible liar."

Haymitch comes to his senses, remembers who he's talking to. "What'd he tell you?"

She shrugs. "That they weren't. But he…had a thing for her. Before."

She can't bring herself to tell Haymitch that Gale had broken down, told Johanna everything: that though he may have had a crush on Johanna since her Games, he fell in love with Katniss for reasons that were real, not based on some fantasy from the TV. He loved Katniss for her strength, her courage, her fierce devotion to her family that mirrored his own. Johanna had none of those things: had no family to be devoted to, anyways. The only thing she had in common with Gale was being unusually good at setting traps.

Haymitch snorts. "Don't know who didn't have a thing for her," he mutters. "She might be a pain in the ass, but she's got a lot of things guys look for, here." She glares at him.

"Sorry, are you trying to _help_?"

He laughs. "Thought there was nothing to talk about, sweetheart?" he laughs. She sees his hands twitch, realizes he's still hoping for a few drinks before their dinner.

She glares him down. "Don't call me that. You call her that."

"And you don't wanna have one more thing in common with her, is that it?" His gaze levels hers. His eyes are bloodshot: he's hurting, badly. You can't depend on a substance for that long and not hurt when you try to go without it. Her morphling experiences have taught her that much.

"I don't have anything in common with her," she manages to stutter out. Damn it, now _she _wants a drink. He snorts with laughter. He laughs too much for a Victor.

"You two are always gonna more in common than either of you likes," he tells her.

She's realizing that he was never the gentle kind of mentor. That's fine. She hates gentlemen anyways.

"You're always gonna be girls who won your Games by bein' tougher, smarter, better than everyone else," he begins.

"I didn't have any parachutes. I'd say that's an unfair comparison," she tries. He raises an eyebrow at her.

"You also didn't take a handful of berries and start a rebellion. May I continue, or would you like to annoy me some more first?" She shrugs. She wants another brownie, but the kids are probably gonna feed them later. She should be hungry: the boy's a good baker.

"So, the Games are always gonna connect you," he continues as if she'd never spoken. "You also both fought the Capitol, trained for war when you were way too young and way too weak to do so. You both wanted Snow dead. He killed both your families—"

"She still has a mom!" objects Johanna. He scoffs.

"Not really, not anymore," he tells her. "I'm the closest thing that kid has to a parent."

"Well, at least she has you," mutters Johanna. She doesn't know why she's trying so hard to win this argument.

"Yeah, and you don't," Haymitch scoffs. "I'm sitting here not drinking because I'm _not _here for you. Can I finish, or do you have any more stupid objections?" She sighs, silences herself with some kind of cheesy concoction. Screw being hungry for supper.

"I'm not even at the most important part." She wonders how the hell childhood death battles, torture, and war _aren't _the most important parts, but she stays silent.

"Those boys are always gonna connect you," he says, throwing down the gauntlet. "You fell in love with the same idiot. And he's strong, too strong to just be thrown out of the mix for either of you, no matter what happens."

"He killed her sister," she whispers. And now she feels tears threatening. Haymitch sounds a thousand years old when he answers.

"We've all killed a lot of kids, Jo," he reminds her. "Murdering children's hardly a determining factor."

She finds the knife she'd been using to spread butter on her cheese bun thing between his fingers before she's realized what she's doing. He merely raises an eyebrow.

"I should add good aim to my list," he mutters, pulling it out of the table and handing it back to her.

"She wasn't just another kid, Haymitch," she whispers, horrified. She can't bring herself to say Prim's name aloud, but she detests him for suggesting that she was just another tribute.

He shrugs. "She wasn't," he agrees, "but that girl has let go of a lot, and I mean _a lot_, of stuff the boy did to her. She's learned to forgive him through all this hell. Don't think that the boy doesn't connect you, too, by the way."

Johanna shakes her head. "Peeta never did anything as bad as killing-"

"He tried to kill her. You know that, Jo."

"But she loved that kid more than she loves herself. You know that, brainless." It's the first time she's let that term of endearment out. He sighs.

"She did," he agrees, "but I just—Jo, I'm not trying to diminish Prim's death. I'm trying to tell you that she wasn't gonna choose your man no matter what. And you were never gonna choose hers."

"So you're telling me I'm the runner-up? Great. Thanks. I wasn't feeling that way already."

He sighs, clearly has had his fill of temperamental women already, and it's not even noon.

"I'm telling you the opposite," he whispers. "He was never choosing her either."

"So, what are you trying to tell me?" she snaps, lashing out. She's done being mentored. Was done being mentored a long time ago.

"That you're connected by more than Games, more than the revolution. You've both worked harder than any girls I ever met to _let_ someone love you. Most girls don't have to work for that."

"And we do, so we're star-crossed sisters? Is _that_ what you're saying?" she demands. Her throat is tight: she's going to start crying if he doesn't knock it off. "Because that's bull. Anyone, male or female, who went through what we went through knows what it's like to work for this. Look at the boy!"

"Oh, get your panties out of a twist, I was getting there," he scoffs at her. "I'm just sayin, not only should you lay off her, you should trust her. She's more like you than anyone else will be, even your tall, dark, and idiot boyfriend."

"We're more alike than anyone else, hey?" she demands. Tears, hot and salty, are spilling out of her eyes. Her throat is threatening to close, she's sure her cheeks are red. _Why is he saying this_? "Because I'd say I have more in common with the boy, and _they_ have more in common than she and I. They provided for their families, learned to hunt, learned to fight together. And Peeta and I are always gonna fight the same kind of nightmares. I have no _idea_ how he's lighting fires after what happened to him, because there's days where I can't even turn on a _fucking_ light switch!"

Her voice has risen, a bubble of hysteria rising with it. "So if you're trying to tell me that Gale and I are soul mates, that the star-crossed idiots are soul mates, that she and I are just misplaced sisters, try something else!"

She's screaming at him now, and it's pissing her off even more that he's sitting there, taking it, not yelling back as Finnick would've, not trying to get her to see reason, but just letting her yell. She cracks, grabs an empty bottle and flings it at the wall.

"What the _hell_ is wrong with you?" And then she's throwing more stuff: not at him, exactly, not that he couldn't dodge it if she did, but at the walls, the cupboards. His place can take it. It's a mess already. She collapses onto the floor, sobbing, and after a few moments, he slips down beside her. He doesn't try to touch her- thank God, just sits beside her noiselessly.

"What the hell am I doing here?" she demands. She doesn't want to be here. He sighs, offers her an empty bottle. She tosses it at the wall, but her rage seems to have melted away.

"You fell in love, Jo," is all he says. "That's why you're here."

"Finnick would be proud," she mutters, wiping the tears away. Shit, she'd promised herself she wouldn't cry.

"He's not gonna leave me, is he?" she whispers. A part of her is disgusted with herself: Johanna Mason, fearless Victor, sobbing on the floor over a boy with the drunk, washed-up mentor of the girl who seems intent on destroying her life. But most of her is just desperate, sad…broken.

"He's not leaving you," Haymitch whispers. He looks like he wants to take her hand but thinks better of it.

"Not even when you can't turn on the lights, or when you won't shower because you start panicking," he continues. A few minutes ago, she would've made a crack about him thinking about her in the shower, but her tears haven't run dry quite yet. "And she's not leaving him, even when he can't light fires for his ovens or when he can't sort through reality and asks her the stupidest questions."

She smiles at his estimation of Peeta's insanity, though frankly, she's amazed he can even hold it together to ask her questions.

"You need him, and he needs her."

She nods, still crying. It was the only thing she was ever certain of as she listened to his screams: that she could never make him feel better. He was never screaming for anyone else.

And she does need Gale, now, much as she hates to admit it. He holds her together on days when her Capitol torture seems unending because she's _not_ getting better, on days where grief over losing her family and Finnick and every other damn person threaten to overtake her.

"They need each other," she agrees, sniffling, "but I don't think Gale needs me."

Haymitch scoffs and then she's laughing, through her mess of tears. "He wouldn't be here without you," he tells her, "so I'm gonna go ahead and say he does. More than that, I'm pretty sure he knows he does."

* * *

Despite the fact that she's happy with Haymitch, sitting on the porch discussing the least favorite district from their own Victory Tours (he says Seven to piss her off and she almost stabs him, then realizes he probably gets a too much practice dodging knives with the girl around for it to be worth her while), she's still glad that Gale's alone when he comes to get them for supper. Haymitch mutters something about changing for dinner and disappears. Gale wraps her in his arms, sighs into her hair. She's a much better height for him than Katniss.

"How was your little talk? You two solve everything, then?" she asks, smirking at her own cleverness. She's come to appreciate that Gale can see through her sarcasm, though it's taken a while for her to feel that way.

"Yeah, only took a few minutes. Wanna know what we did with the time left over?" She kicks him so hard in the shins that she's pretty sure a lesser man would be limping for a week. He might, too, except he'd never give her that satisfaction.

"Sorry. Sorry! Not funny!" She glares at him. He shakes his head. "Someone needed to lighten the mood. Pretty sure Mellark's gonna lose what's left of his brain now that I'm here."

"I knew there was some reason I liked you," she mutters, "but I forgot it was your sensitivity." He smirks. She hits him.

"What's wrong with you? Do you have any idea the afternoon I've had? Any idea how much you're crossing the line with Peeta by even being here?" He shakes his head, pulls her into his arms again.

"I'm trying to make you smile," he whispers. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not gonna smile. I've been chasing off visions of you two disappearing all afternoon." He pulls back, tilts her chin so she has to look at him.

"You have not." She snorts. "I mean, you didn't think I'd do that to you?"

"None of us have it all together, moron," she tells him. She meant to call him gorgeous, but it didn't come out like that. She's still pretty pissed at him.

"I would never do that to you," he whispers, and she hears that annoyingly sexy determination enter his voice. Why does she have to love him so damn much?

"Well, if you did, I'd end up with Mellark, and I'm pretty sure he's into some weird stuff after the Capitol," she mutters, mostly because she's not willing to have a conversation that ends with her telling him how much she needs him.

He throws his head back and laughs. "Sorry, who's crossing the line?" he demands, and she lets a self-satisfied grin grace her face.

"C'mon, let's get Abernathy and get to the real party. I'm starving." Hardly, she's been gorging herself all afternoon. Shit, she was supposed to stop lying to him.

He nods, but pulls her in for a kiss, a real one that speaks volumes about lust and devotion. He loves her, she reminds herself as he pulls her flush against him, his hand arching her back. She reaches up to touch his cheek, feeling how firm he is, how warm, and she reassures herself that however much she might've messed up in the past, this is probably the first thing she's got right.

"Why is this my life lately?" snarls Haymitch as he pushes past them, purposely knocking them into a wall. They pull apart not because they're done, but because they're laughing too hard.

"This is what mentoring women's all about, brainless!" Johanna calls out to him as she hears him rummaging through bottles in the kitchen. She's not sure but she thinks she hears him laugh.

**Reviews make me smile. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Somehow, I've given in to expanding another one-shot. I love Johanna and Gale together, so much, and have been asked a few times to write about them. So here y'all go. **

**Just fyi: I've never EVER taken requests until I started writing Hunger Games. Your reviews are all so wonderful and make me smile the BIGGEST smile and just make me want to write more so I'll get to hear what you guys think. This fandom is wonderful. Just sayin'. **

**The Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins, not to me, though I do enjoy playing with her characters.**

She's at a complete loss with what to do with her time for the next week, so she ends up spending most of her time drunk with Haymitch. She's not entirely sure Gale approves, but then, she doesn't approve of him taking off with Katniss every freaking day, so they're probably about even.

The morning they pull the fence down, she knows that Gale's been gone for hours because she's freezing when she finally wakes up. She's frustrated by how distant they've been since they got here, sure their stupid Mockingjay is probably always going to have some impact on their relationship. She sighs, getting out of bed and getting dressed. She heads downstairs looking for something to eat, and finds the kitchen almost bare. She supposes that Katniss must be distracted nowadays, what with occupying the love of Johanna's life, and the boy must be a bit preoccupied with the same issues she is, but you'd think they'd keep _something_ in the house for their fairly unwelcome guests. She sighs and heads over to Haymitch's.

He's asleep, on the floor, so she ignores him and starts searching his cupboards. He'd let it slip when he was drunk two days ago that he hasn't even attempted to feed himself since he got back to Twelve. The kids keep him very well stocked, so she's shocked to see that he has no food either. _What the hell have those idiots been doing_? More because she's distraught by ideas of what Katniss has been doing besides hunting than because she's hungry, she wakes Haymitch up by kicking him hard in the ribs. He flails around with his knife but she's long since jumped out of the way.

"Why d'you sleep on the floor, old man?" she asks instead of a good morning. "Isn't that bad for your back or something?" He glares at her, adjusting his rumpled clothing.

"Isn't waking me up at this time of day bad for your health?" he snaps.

She shrugs. "There's no food in your house or in the star-crossed idiots. I'm hungry." He rolls his eyes.

"You're a big girl," he tells her sarcastically, getting to his feet and running a hand through his hair. "Bet you could figure out where town is all by yourself."

He walks her there, of course.

"Is she always this distracted?" asks Johanna along the way. He rolls his eyes. He's very hung over.

"You always ask stupid questions?" he mutters by way of an answer. "She's got some stuff to distract her at the moment, in case you didn't notice the tall moron in your bed running off with her every day."

Johanna flushes at the tactless way he puts it, though she was thinking the same thing herself. Despite being sure she's far too old and far too smart to need a mentor, she's been unbelievably grateful for his mostly-drunk input into her life over the last week. He's wiser than he seems.

"I should probably be seducing the boy as collateral, shouldn't I?" she asks, mock-innocently. He snorts.

"Don't think that boy's ever goin' for another woman, but you could try," he drawls. "Oh, shit."

She looks at him in confusion. He's staring at the bakery, where there's a line coming all the way out the door and you can hear the frustrated and angry voices of people who want to get their food and go about their day. Haymitch pushes past them into the store, and Johanna nervously follows him. She's surprised that they let her through until she remembers that they all know who she is (she's a Victor) and that they're probably also aware that she was tortured along with their favorite baker.

He's looking more flustered than she's ever seen him, sweating as he tries to placate an angry customer.

"I'm sorry," she hears him saying as she follows Haymitch up to the counter. "I just made a mistake. So you need four loaves of bread, not four cinnamon buns, that's what you're saying?" He goes to write this in the ledger on the counter and knocks it to the ground. His hands are shaking uncontrollably. He tries three times to pick it up before the customer has pity on him and stoops to get it herself.

Haymitch steps behind the counter and picks up a pen. "Let me, kid," he says more gently than she's ever heard him speak before. He makes up for it a moment later by growling at the woman, "What the hell do you want?" To her credit, she doesn't seem very taken aback by his rudeness. People here must be used to Haymitch.

Her sometimes-mentor raises his eyebrows at her, glaring at her and then at the boy. She gets the picture, though she wonders if anyone else but Katniss would. Whatever. Not time to be thinking about how much she has in common with that moron. She takes Peeta gently by the arm and leads him into the back room, where he collapses on a small stool, his face in his hands. She sinks down beside him, a huge bag of flour making a rather comfortable seat.

"Where's the old lady?" she asks softly.

"She does deliveries before lunch," says Peeta through his fingers. "I usually have no problem handling this. What's going on?" He's still shaking.

"You're a bit distracted," she tells him, and he snorts a laugh. "No idea by what though," she continues. "I mean really, it's not as if we were tortured halfway to death, then managed to somehow fall in love, only to have it all collapse at our feet again. No idea what's wrong with you, kid."

He starts to cry. Shit, she didn't mean it like _that._

"Peeta," she whispers, her hand on his arm. He grasps her small hand in his huge one. She'd forgotten how big he is, how strong.

"She's gonna leave me," he whispers.

"No," says Johanna. "She wouldn't do that."

"And all I can think about is, if she does, there'll be no one to pull me out of my episodes. I'll end up an insane, violent, sadistic _bastard_ they'll have to lock up because I keep-"

"No," says Johanna firmly, probably too loudly, but she doesn't care. He's going to make her cry, and she doesn't cry twice in the same week, end of discussion. "Haymitch and I will _not_ let that happen, you hear me?" He keeps crying; he's trembling so violently she's worried he'll fall off the stool.

"And it doesn't matter, because she's not leaving you. Because if she leaves you, he leaves me." This doesn't help at all; if anything, he squeezes her hand tighter. Stupid, empathetic kid: he's probably just as affected by the idea of her pain as she is. She needs to lighten the mood, fast, or they're going to end up blubbering Victors in a bakery, and that's just the start to a bad joke.

"They're not leaving us," she repeats firmly. "Nobody dumps Johanna Mason." This has the desired effect, sort of: at least he starts laughing through his tears.

"Nobody," he echoes, smiling a very shaky, watery smile. He meets her eyes for the first time.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, serious again now that he's paying attention. "I hate that they targeted you as a way of targeting her. I hate that you two are so alone, going through this alone."

"Not as alone as you are," he whispers. He's still holding her hand. "Gale can't understand what you've been through. You've got it way harder than we do."

What is this kid's problem? He's been taking notes from his mentor, if he thinks he's allowed to cut straight to the heart of her problems like that. Jerk.

"Yeah, totally, so why don't you stop feeling sorry for yourself and pity me?" she tries, which again, makes him laugh, but he's still got tears on his cheeks. She wipes them away.

"They were rougher on you than they were on me," she whispers. She doesn't talk about this, ever, not even with Gale, but she's willing to bend the rules for him.

"They weren't," he sighs. "Mental torture and physical torture are completely different tools, and one is not worse than the other." How can he be so charismatic when he's barely holding himself together?

"But you're stuck there," she says before she can stop herself. "You still have those…what'd she call em, episodes…whenever something upsets you."

"And you don't?" he counters. "You don't have nightmares that keep you in bed for days? Don't have mornings where you still can't shower because you can't stop thinking about it?" She sighs, concedes defeat.

"I don't know how to do this," he whispers. He's not crying anymore. Their pain goes so far beyond tears; she learned a long time ago that crying or throwing tantrums does nothing to alleviate it, though she, like him, falls prey to it sometimes anyways.

"None of us do, kid," she mutters back. "We just gotta keep on living and figure it out as we go."

"I didn't mean that," he sighs. "I meant being with her. Loving her. I don't know how to do that when I'm only half-way put back together." She stares at him, somewhat in shock.

"You really are a moron, aren't you?" she asks incredulously. He completely ignores her insult. She's pretty sure that he's too used to it to care.

"You were there, Johanna. You've seen what I do to her. Sure, I'm not violent anymore but I don't know a damn thing when I get like that and no one can help but her!"

"I was _there_, Peeta, remember? I understand your episodes more than anyone! I saw so much of what they did to you, and the point of all that shit was to get to her. They wanted to fu-mess with you so they could destroy her. The fact that you're doubting your ability to love her makes me want to beat you until you-"

"I'm not doubting my _ability_ to love," he sighs, running a hand through his hair so white specks of flour mix in with the blonde. "I'm doubting…whether it's reasonable for me to be attempting it with her. We're both so fragile, Jo."

"Doesn't matter how fragile you are: she _needs_ you," Johanna mutters. She'd meant to lead up to that with a sarcastic comment or two, but there's something about an honest and hopeless Peeta Mellark that cuts through all her bullshit.

He shakes his head. " She's never needed anyone. She doesn't need me to put her back together."

Johanna stares at him. "Where the hell have you been for the last year?" she demands. "The war, torture, the Games, they've changed us, all of us. That girl and I-" oh, shit, she _never_ wanted to confess this to him- "we have way more in common than either of us likes. Yeah, she never needed anyone before. Guess what? _Neither did I!_ And now I'm here, sitting on a goddamn bag of flour because I can't leave Gale for a week without going insane."

He nods, still not sure what this has to do with Katniss.

"She might not have needed anyone before, but she has needed you since your first Games, moron. She might not have loved you then like she loves you now, but need and love are very different."

Peeta's quiet for a very long time. Johanna isn't sure what he's thinking, and she doesn't want to hurt him more, but she needs to get it all out in the open.

"She might be able to get food or water or shelter all by her lonesome, but in Panem, that isn't all you need to survive. After what happened to us, we _need_ people." She sighs, because she's still loathe to admit that. "And trust me, boy, if there is _anyone_ left that she needs, it's you. It was always gonna be you, not my tall, dark, and idiot boyfriend." (Haymitch's nicknames are really catchy).

He smiles, though he seems unsure. His hands are shaking less, the one clasped in Johanna's firm and warm.

"You wanna talk about it?" she asks quietly. "The Capitol? Because if there's anyone who's gonna understand, it's the starving Victor you got trapped in your little bakery." He laughs aloud, gets up and brings her an assortment of biscuits and pastries.

"Ah, I knew there was a reason the girl kept you around," she jokes, then remembers why there are still tear stains on his cheeks. "Kidding!" He only rolls his eyes, anyways.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" he counters. She shakes her head and ends up getting powdered sugar everywhere.

"I don't talk about it," she admits. "Ever. With anyone. But I'd make an exception for you, kid."

He smiles. "I'm flattered Jo. It's too bad you're with tall, dark and idiot." She laughs again, spraying powdered sugar all over her shirt. Maybe she should stay away from pastries.

"I'm the Victor with the most tasteless jokes, boy," growls a voice from the doorway. "Don't even think about stealing my title." Haymitch's face is flushed and his shirt is dirty.

He sinks down next to Johanna and stuffs an entire pastry in his mouth at once. She applauds; she wants to get away with manners like that but is pretty sure she'd need to be drunk full-time in order to do so.

Peeta's staring at him, unimpressed. "I'm assuming Sae is back with her granddaughter?" he asks.

Haymitch nods. "Said you should go home, that she'll be fine without you for one day." Peeta sighs.

"I don't need to go home," he mutters, but he's lying to the wrong people. Johanna's eyebrows almost disappear into her hairline. Haymitch just chuckles.

"Yeah, you're fine, boy, what were we thinking? D'you know you gave Thom eight loaves of rye when he asked for eight cheese biscuits? What the hell's he supposed to do with eight loaves of bread?"

"Lay off him," Johanna demands, suddenly furious despite the fact that she herself was far from gentle with him a few minutes ago. "He's been through hell and back. If he wants to waste bread, he can."

Peeta snorts. "We never waste food," he mutters. "It'd send Katniss back over the deep end." Haymitch chuckles. She has no idea how he's managed to stay on his feet this long without a drink.

"Are you sober?" she asks incredulously. She mostly needs a diversion from talking about Katniss' fragile mental state, because she's simply not up for discussing yet _another_ one of their similarities.

"Are you?" Haymitch demands, belligerent as always. But the way his hands are shaking (hard enough to knock his next pastry to the ground) speaks volumes. She rolls her eyes.

"Kid, why don't you go drink it off with him? I can handle the bakery." Peeta stares at her.

"Do you usually just kick people out of their own homes when they start talking about subjects you want to avoid?" he asks.

Haymitch sniggers. "I bet ole Gorgeous has spent a few nights on the couch, hasn't he?" She glares at them, mostly because they're right. Gale has spent nights on the couch, but not for the reasons they're assuming. Her issues run far deeper than that.

She wonders if Peeta ever sleeps on the couch. Somehow, she doubts it.

"Gale never sleeps on the couch," she murmurs instead of telling them the truth. She isn't up for honesty right now. Her voice is low and seductive. "I'm far too _insatiable_ for that," she basically purrs. They're both intrigued, somewhat, not because they're attracted to her, simply because they've probably both doubted any ability she has to seduce after watching her chop people into pieces in the Games. While they're distracted, she manages to get a good handful of flour without them noticing.

"Want to know what I do to him when he pisses me off?" she asks, eyebrow raised. Haymitch catches onto her trick a moment before the flour hits him, which means the bulk of it ends up on Peeta's face and hair. He's coughing out clouds of flour while Haymitch chortles with laughter.

"None of your damn business!" she snaps, throwing another handful and getting at least some of it on the sober moron. Both of her boys are laughing now, and with a nod from Haymitch, Peeta pins her down and they proceed to absolutely cover her face and hair. She's a good wrestler, but the boy's huge: he's probably got a hundred pounds on her.

"C'mon, kid," laughs Haymitch, pulling him off Johanna, who's spluttering and coughing through a mouthful of flour. "Let's get you a drink." They head out without so much as a goodbye to her, though, she figures as she gets up and tries to brush her face off, it's not like she's got anyone else to talk to once she's done. Shockingly, she hasn't made a lot of friends, what with her terrifying reputation and general hatred for all things related to 12.

"What?" she barks at the first customer who dares to openly stare at the flour that adorns her where Capitol women have make-up and hairspray.

"This is what a baker's supposed to look like."

**Reviews make me smile. **


	3. Chapter 3

**You guys make my world better. I'm so sorry for the delay with this fic, but the recent events on this site have hit me hard. I'm not a big fan of censorship, as I'm sure neither are any of you. **

**Anyways, here's the deal: I'm going to be writing this mainly in flashbacks, with Johanna thinking about how she and Gale got to the point of the last two chapters. Hope it's not confusing. It's a tie-in with my other fic, _Surviving, _but you don't need to read that to understand this. **

**The Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins, not to me, though I do enjoy playing with her characters.**

She sees the girl coming from a distance, and sighs as she realizes she's going to have to share the pastries the lady's granddaughter gave her as a thank you for working. She remembers a child like that in 7: they'd given him a stick so he wouldn't hurt anyone and let him come play in the woods while they chopped down trees. He had an uncle who kept an eye on him, but they'd _all _kept an eye on him, really. It was soothing, listening to him garble to himself and hit trees with his stick: like having a pet. He was reaped when he was 13. There's a part of her that still wishes one of her brothers had volunteered.

Katniss is already scowling at her as she walks up. Johanna has no idea what she's supposed to say. Gale told her the first night they were here that he told Katniss things had started when they shot a propos on the beach. This is true, she supposes. That was when they became friends, when she'd realized maybe she felt something for him that she didn't (doesn't) even want to feel. But that sure as hell wasn't when they met. They'd had their first real interaction during Katniss' trial, and she isn't sure if Gale didn't mention it because reliving anything that happened during her trial would upset Katniss or because reliving that first little chitchat would upset both of them...

* * *

She wandered up to the roof of the training center when she saw that Haymitch was otherwise…_occupied_…with Effie. Well, heard, not saw, if accuracy is important. How the hell that woman can do _anything_ that would cause her to make those noises after what Johanna's sure happened to her is beyond comprehension, but good on her. Haymitch is something of a catch, she supposes, in a weird, old, drunk way.

When she gets to the roof, she sees someone standing there; someone tall and strong, and she has this inexplicable feeling that she's _safe. _There's a moment where she's _sure_ it's Finnick, because no one else has made her feel safe like that in a long time. And then he turns, and she sees his brooding expression where Finnick's smile would be, and she realizes that she needs to get a grip. Real or not real, just like the boy. And Finnick is dead. That was real.

Gale Hawthorne doesn't look surprised to see her, just like, if she really thinks about it, she's not too surprised to see him. He _would_ be staring down at the gaping hole in front of the president's mansion…or what was the president's mansion. Haymitch had filled her in on the hovercraft, about the bombs, the fire…Prim. The dark abyss draws her eyes no matter how much she doesn't want to look at it. The bodies of children are down there. Prim's body is down there.

They stand wordlessly in front of the forcefield, looking down at the Capitol. To Johanna, the protests for or against their Mockingjay seem almost calm, but then, she's only been up here before when they were screaming for the death of children. She supposes almost anything must seem calm compared to that.

More because she needs a distraction than because she actually wants to know, she asks, "So, d'you testify today, Pretty Boy?" He doesn't smile at her nickname or anything; his head jerks up and down. She smirks. Strong and silent type—too bad he's taken by Katniss, even if she's not interested. That girl marks territory like…well, sort of like Johanna herself.

"They won't execute her. You know that right?" He glares at her, saying nothing. "She was the symbol for our revolution, our rallying point. You don't make martyrs when the country's in this kind of fragile state."

Gale is shaking his head. "She assassinated the president. That makes her a criminal, not a martyr."

"You know why she did it," says Johanna, trying to sound airy, but it comes out heavy instead. They both know why she did it, but she knows Gale feels it more than she does.

He doesn't say anything for a long time, but when he speaks, he sounds like a child. A lost little boy. "What if it was my bomb?"

Well, that kills the mood. Not that it was very bright to begin with. She has no idea what to say, so she says the first thing that comes to her mind.

"Well, then you killed a whole whack of kids. Join the damn club."

He sighs, and it's a sound that's wistful, regretful…painful. It's a sound she certainly recognizes.

"It helps if you don't picture their faces," she tells him. It's the only survival strategy she's learned, and it's been 6 years. When he turns to face her, his glare is murderous.

"I grew up with Prim," he snarls. "She was like my damn sister. I'm pretty sure she was in love with my brother. Some days, she would only smile for me. She used to bring me flowers when she brought salve for my mom's hands. How the _fuck_ do you expect me to stop picturing her face?"

She recoils, but not from what he's just said. She's been there. It's from the curse: it conjures terrible images of her shrieking that word into the darkness, water dripping from every part of her, sobs choking her as the electrocutions make her weak and sick…

She's slipped onto the ground, curled into a ball, before she really knows what's happening.

"Shit, Johanna, I'm sorry," he mutters, kneeling beside her. He doesn't touch her, thank God.

"You didn't need to know all that, I'm just angry and—" She holds out a hand, indicating that he should shut up, and he complies.

"It wasn't your over-sharing," she whispers, taking deep, calming breaths like Aurelius told her to. "But could you watch your language?" She manages to look at him, and see the look of confusion that settles on his handsome features.

"Sorry. I usually do in front of ladies," he mutters carefully, which causes her to throw back her head and laugh.

"No one's called me a lady in a long time, Hawthorne," she teases. "I said that word a lot the last time I was here."

The look of confusion returns for a moment, until comprehension dawns.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and she shakes her head.

"How would you know?" she mutters. She's embarrassed, but she's sure Aurelius would tell her that's silly. And after all, it was Gale who rescued her, who scooped her unconscious, bloody, bald form from the floor of her jail cell. He's pretty much seen it all, so why be embarrassed?

He shrugs. "I need to be careful about what I say."

"Not anymore," she points out. "Wasn't that the point of this whole revolution thing?" She sits back against the wall, makes herself comfortable. She's a little surprised when he joins her. They're quiet for a long time.

"D'you think it was worth it?" he finally asks. "I mean, Plutarch would tell you we've succeeded, or something. Have we?"

"Plutarch's a moron," is all she says. Because, though they have, she knows exactly what he's feeling. Somehow, he's become a Victor. He's feeling what it's like to have achieved a victory that feels so far beyond bittersweet there are no words for it. He knows what it's like now, to have the blood of innocents on your hands. But he also knows what it's like to have killed those who were asking for it: careers, really, though they weren't called that in this arena.

He doesn't seem satisfied with her answer. He's staring at her, eyebrows still raised.

"I don't think you should worry about what Plutarch says," she finally gets out. "You should worry about what the boy would say. That's where the real answer is."

Hurt flashes across his face. Just for a moment; he's clearly a master at hiding his emotions. The fact that she's mastered it better than he has is probably why she sees his momentary lapse.

"I haven't exactly filled out my membership card for his fan club," mutters Gale. She hides a smile.

"Yeah, well, trust me, if you'd listened to the kid scream for months on end, you would've. I'm not asking you to like him, I'm asking you to respect that he's got a better sense of justice than anyone either of us have ever met. He told us that the point of the war was to live in a world without Games. And now, thanks to your girlfriend, we are."

"She's not my girlfriend," he spits out, sounding for all the world like a mortified 12-year-old. She chuckles.

"Well, that was undoubtedly my point." He cracks a smile. Barely. "We're living in a world without Games. Does that mean we've succeeded?"

When he looks at her, there is pain in his eyes that she knows all too well.

"Are we living without Games?" he asks, his strong voice quiet but deadly. "Really? Because I'm not sure we'll _ever_ be truly free of them."

"Success and freedom are two completely different concepts," she tells him, cutting him off. "For what it's worth, I do think we succeeded. I also think that everyone who went through the war, whatever their role, is far too broken to be _free_."

He takes a moment to consider this, and in that moment, she studies him. His strength, the raw power coiled just below the surface, reminds her so strongly of herself that she wants to ask him a million questions he could never answer.

When he finally speaks, he says one of the last things she was expecting.

"I heard you voted for the Games," he whispers, and she can tell he's not proud of himself for bringing it up. "You voted for the death of more children."

She shrugs, because really, what else can she do? He's right, she did, and she's stopped lying to herself enough that she knows she would again in a heartbeat.

"I want justice," she tells him, "and I don't feel justified. I sure as hell don't feel free."

"And you think another set of Hunger Games would change that?" he asks. "You think that's what would set you free?"

She wants to cry, just for a heartbeat, a breath, before she's filled with a seething anger.

"Nothing is ever going to set me free," she hisses at him. "The Capitol, _Snow_, took my family, my _best friend_, everyone I cared about, and I want to take something back from them."

"I did that," he snarls at her. "I killed _their_ children too, or didn't you get that part of the story?"

But she's shaking her head.

"It isn't about death," she tells him. "Being reaped, being a tribute: death is a miniscule part of the equation. It is about feeling alone, and desperate, and haunted. It's about shame and hopelessness. _That's_ what the Games are about, and I wanted Snow's granddaughter, some of those moronic _infants_ who never worried being reaped a day in their lives to have some idea of how we felt every goddamn year. I just wanted them to know."

There's a pause as he takes this all in, and she should give him space, but she's not very good at that.

"You'd do the same thing, handsome," she tells him scathingly. He doesn't pause.

"Of course I would." She's surprised by his candor. "But I'm a soldier, a military man. I don't think the way you do, about the hurt and the nightmares and what comes after. I think about how to do what needs to be done: like when we took down the Nut. _That's_ how I think."

"Like a Gamemaker," she muses aloud before she can stop herself. He looks at her like she slapped him. "That's how they think. They don't care about what comes after."

He puts his heads on his knees, grasping his hair like he wants to pull it out. She wants to touch him, somewhere: his shoulder, his hand, his cheek? But she can't.

"I'm a monster," he whispers into his knees, horrified. "After I hated those sadistic bastards my _entire life_, it took no time at all for me to be just like them." The haunted look in his eyes is so familiar it makes her cringe. "Who the hell did I think I was, choosing who lived and who died? Who the hell do you think you are, deciding Snow's granddaughter should die but my sister should live? Why does war, the threat of death, turn us into the worst versions of ourselves?"

His voice is so quiet that it breaks her. She doesn't _know_, doesn't want to think about it, doesn't owe him a damn thing, doesn't even know what the hell she's doing here.

"Well, if you wanna know what I think," she tells him sarcastically, grabbing his shoulder and using it to leverage herself to her feet, "I'd be ruminating on how to win the girl back, not philosophical questions on human nature that no one can _answer_."

His pain somehow magnifies as she speaks: she brought up Katniss, on top of everything else.

"How the hell can I win her back when I killed her sister?" he asks Johanna bitterly. "I'm a monster. I'm a Gamemaker."

"And I'm a Victor!" she snaps, her temper flaring. "You don't hear me whining! We move on, Gale, because there's nothing else we _can_ do. Trust me, I know from very personal experience that you can't throw yourself off this roof."

She's furious, feels herself getting pulled into memories she never goes near.

"If you think you're special because you killed a few more kids than the rest of us, you can go to hell. And frankly," she's on a roll, very aware that Finnick would've stopped her by now, but the fact that he isn't here to do so just fuels her more, "you're better off without that girl, because she's needed our little baker far longer than she'd ever admit to you or anyone!"

She wants to stomp away after that, but the fury on his face keeps her firmly rooted in place. What if he wants to fight back? God, she _needs_ someone to fight with her. She's sick of being babied. He's looking at her with something that borders on hatred.

"You know you're a bitch, right?" he asks scathingly. She shrugs, secretly disappointed. Is that the best he's got?

"Yeah, I've been told once or twice."

"And that everyone hates you?" Ah, that's a bit better. She doesn't know why she's craving this so much. Probably because she always argued with Finnick, who calmed her like no one else. This isn't calming her, but to be honest, she doesn't really want to be calm right now anyways.

"I don't think _everyone _hates me," she tells him scathingly, her gaze steady on his. His mouth gapes open.

"You think I _wanted_ to talk to you tonight?" he demands, reading her perfectly. "You're deluded."

"Uh-huh," she teases. She loves that he's being so cruel. She knows deep down that he probably didn't _want _to talk but he _needed_ to, whether he's willing to admit it or not.

"And pathetic," he continues. He's starting on a roll, and she's proud of herself, for dragging him down with her, for giving in to this anger.

"I was just listening to your _stupid_ rambling because you're a pathetic little girl who couldn't even hack the war."

"Is that supposed to _hurt_?" she demands, glad it's dark so he can't see her blush. She's still so ashamed of herself, but she knows how to hide it. "That the girl who took the worst of the Capitol's torture couldn't run straight back into Snow's mansion? _Really_? I thought you were supposed to be smart."

He's glaring at her, but underneath the glare, she sees sympathy. He was there, she remembers, he scraped her cold, failing body off the floor of her cell. She doesn't remember much, but she could never forget his determined grey eyes, somehow promising hope and revenge without a single word.

"And I know, by the way," she snaps, scathingly, because she _doesn't_ think about that, "that you only rescued me because you wanted to get Peeta, because you wanted a chance with the girl." He gazes at her, unyielding. He doesn't deny it. He's far too smart.

"Too bad that didn't work out for you," she snarls. He merely shrugs. She's hurting him, but Soldier Hawthorne is back in control. His momentary slip into his anger and hurt is finished, and he's back behind the mask.

Well, he's not the only one who can put on a mask.

"I'm going to bed," she tells him, her voice soft. Inside, she's furious that the rise she got out of him flamed out so quickly. She's angry that she couldn't drag him down with her. More than anything, she's furious that they somehow got on the topic of him rescuing her. He _rescued_ her, saved her life, and she's never even thanked him for it. And though what she said was true, though he did do it for Katniss and Peeta, he's still the only reason she's here. And there was a tenderness in his grasp that she's sure she didn't hallucinate, a promise in the harsh set of his jaw and the fire in his eyes. She may be pissed that his control far outstrips hers, but she needs to thank him. She wouldn't be here if not for his discipline. She spins around to see that he's on his feet and only a few paces behind her.

"What the _hell_?" she demands, after jumping a foot in the air. He smirks. Katniss had told her how quiet she and her "cousin" could walk, but that was _impressive_.

"You're not the only one who's ready to pretend to sleep. But you looked like you had some parting words?"

He's smirking, but she sees underneath it that he's still hurting, that she's not the only one thinking of dungeons and dead children. There's a silence that hangs in the air momentarily, a breath where they both realize that this isn't about the hurt or the anger. She closes her eyes, and when she opens them, his gaze is softer than she's ever seen it.

"Thank you," she whispers, and her voice is rid of the sarcasm and anger. She's sincere, genuine.

"For what?" he asks, genuinely confused.

"Rescuing me," she tells him. "You gave me back my life."

He moves a step closer. There's something gentle about this moment that is the opposite of both of their natures, and it's soothing her. If she's completely honest with herself, it's soothing her in a way Finnick never could.

"What else could I do?" he whispers. "You needed to be rescued."

His hand comes to rest on her cheek, and she likes it, likes the warmth suddenly spreading through her. She closes her eyes, breathes in the night air and his scent. She has no idea what's going on. She feels like she's about to be reaped again or rescued again, and she won't know which it is until much later. He moves a stray hair from her face. She takes another breath. His nose touches hers…

A loud clunk from the door right behind her gives them both a shock.

"Gotta get while the girl's asleep," Haymitch leers at Johanna, wandering over to the wind chimes and pulling a bottle from in between them. He's industrious, she'll give him that. Gale has jumped away from her as if she's on fire (ah, the irony- she mentally catalogues that simile to torture him with later). Haymitch turns to them after he's taken a generous pull at the bottle.

"What the hell are you two doing, anyways?"

They stare at each other. What are they doing?

When Gale answers, it's as if all the anger she wanted from him, the reaction, the _pain_, is channeled into one simple, quiet word.

"Nothing."

Story of her life, she thinks as she lies alone in bed. She feels so much like nothing most of the time that she's shocked she doesn't float away.

**Reviews make me smile. **


	4. Chapter 4

**You guys make my world better. I'm updating way slower than I usually do, and I'm really sorry. I could make a million excuses, but I won't. I'm just sorry. **

**If you haven't read _Surviving_, I'd suggest you read the chapter "laughing". It contains Johanna and Katniss' conversation: Johanna's flashbacks about Gale originated from that conversation. You don't have to read it, though. **

**Present tense is in italics. Past is not. Hope it's not confusing. **

**The Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins, not to me, though I do enjoy playing with her characters.**

_She's dusting herself off outside the bakery, listening to the old lady sing to her granddaughter, and watching the girl get closer, trying in vain to glare her down. She was clearly expecting her knight in a shining apron, because her face is unusually sour. "What are you doing here?" Johanna smirks._

"_Sent your boy home, to drink with Haymitch. He was shaking like a leaf. I finished the ledger for him." _

_She nods. "He didn't have an episode, did he?" Johanna shakes her head._

"_Nah. Just started messing up all the orders." This, for some inexplicable reason, seems to piss Katniss off. Shouldn't she be grateful he didn't have an episode? Or, even more to the point, shouldn't she be grateful that Johanna's picking up her slack? _

"_He does an amazing job with those orders, considering he never finished school," she snaps at Johanna. _

"_Never said he didn't," she muttered. "And I didn't finish school either, brainless. None of us did. Victors don't finish school." _

_She glares at her for a moment before the two women sink wordlessly onto the steps. Johanna waits. She's reluctant to start a conversation with Katniss, when they're both so damaged, because she has a feeling her usual bravado has been permanently marred by what the Capitol did to her, what the Capitol did to them. _

_Not to mention that the fact that they fell in love with the same moron tends to put a pretty large elephant in the room. _

"_So, we gonna talk about this or what?" _

_Not her most stellar lead-in, but she's tired. Balancing a ledger takes work, though not quite as much work as worrying about what your boyfriend's up to in the woods with another woman. Nothing, clearly, seeing as Katniss is here and Gale's still off ordering people around. She feels Katniss tense beside her at the question, and she wants to scream at the younger girl; for thinking she can hide from Johanna, of all people, for thinking she can lie to someone who's such a better liar, and most of all, for having energy to waste, because she has to know faking it to Johanna would be a waste of her energy. _

"_Sure," Katniss mutters. She grabs a stick, of all things, and starts drawing weird shit in the dirt with it. Seriously, what's wrong with this girl? "What'd you wanna talk about?" _

_Johanna rolls her eyes. What the hell kind of question is that? What the hell else could she want to talk about? Sometimes it feels as if they're competing for some unnamed award in sarcasm or pettiness or something. Sometimes it feels like they're sisters thrown together to compete for attention. Johanna's unbelievably grateful she never had a real sister to begin with. It must be exhausting._

_"About freaking butterflies, moron." _

_This is clearly going to be a long conversation, so she holds out the bag of pastries to her pseudo-younger-sister. They sit in silence for awhile, just chewing. In a weird way, Johanna misses her. _

"_He's not really here for the fence, is he?" _

_And suddenly Johanna doesn't miss her quite so much. Why is she asking such goddamn stupid questions? _

"_Haymitch told me you were smarter than you look. So why the hell are you asking that?"_

_"What are _you_ doing here?" Katniss bursts out suddenly. _

_It's a perfectly valid question. In fact, part of her is proud of the ex-mockingjay for busting out with it quite like that. Except that she's going to hate the answer. There's a part of Johanna herself that still hates the answer. She's suddenly caught up in a memory so strong that there's no point in pushing it away…_

* * *

They'd been at a beach. They never knew where shoots for propos were happening until they got there, but the minute she'd seen water, she'd had the ominous premonition that this probably wouldn't ever hit people's television sets. She hated that they even had to do this in the first place, though Gale's logic of keeping Plutarch the hell away from the star-crossed morons was pretty solid. The public was sated by a Victor and soldier inspiring them on TV, and the kids got to heal back in 12.

But a beach? She'd always known Plutarch wasn't particularly empathetic, but this is a new low. She glares at Cressida, who seems to have been expecting this.

"You won't go in the water," she hastens to say. Johanna's eyebrows shoot up.

"Oh, really, genius? I thought you were gonna dunk me. Oh, wait, some other Capitol idiots already did that!"

Cressida flinches and even Gale seems taken aback by the venom in her voice.

"It's just five minutes on a beach, talking about your victory in the Quell," explains Plutarch, putting an arm around her and pulling her off the train. Doesn't he have more important things to do?

"What victory?" she snaps at him, drawing away from his embrace. "The Mellark kid and I wouldn't call that a victory."

He flinches; he clearly was expecting her to handle this better. Part of her brain, the part that still recoils when she hears a child talk about turning twelve, the part she's fighting desperately to shut down, reminds her that he has no _idea_ how permanently she's been affected, has no notion that water will always set her off because he could care less about the after-effects of the pain he inflicted on his tributes. He's wired to bring on pain to give a good show, not to worry about the effects of torture. He's _still_ just bringing on pain to give a good show. Doesn't he get tired of it?

"What happened to you and Peeta was regrettable," admits Plutarch, pulling her down to the beach as the camera crew sets up. Gale is in make-up but is watching them closely. "But here you are, safe and sound, so why don't you get some make-up on and give us a Victor to root for, hmm?"

It's the fact that he called her a Victor that did it. Because maybe she was, once, but the last time she was on a beach, she was surrounded by people who were anything but Victors. She thinks of the knife in Beetee's back, of Mags' suicide, of Blight hitting the force field, of the look on Katniss' face as she tried to kill the jabberjays, of Finnick, who fought harder than anyone to get them out, and what good did it do him? And then there are tears on her face, and she knows she won't last even five minutes on this beach, because she can't do this anymore.

"I'm not a Victor," she snaps at Plutarch, wiping away her tears impatiently. "There's no such thing as Victors anymore, so don't freaking call me that ever again. Your Games are over, you sadistic bastard. Why would you bring me here?" She's openly weeping and grateful to find that she doesn't care. "You didn't stop to think for a moment about what this would do to me! I get that you just want to entertain, but_ I'm not your goddamn tribute anymore_!"

And with that, she takes off.

She doesn't make it very far before she collapses against a tree, sobbing. What the hell is wrong with her? She's supposed to be the fearless Johanna Mason. But she knows, deep down, that she's not that person anymore. She wants to be the brave Victor who screamed for rebellion during the Quell, who was Finnick's best friend, who wasn't afraid of the Capitol's Games. She knows she's not. Something came undone inside her sometime between when she found herself in the Capitol jail cell and when she found herself alive, addicted to morphling in 13. She's not sure when or how it happened, but she's not the fearless Victor anymore. She's just a scared little girl.

She doesn't hear his footsteps, so she's pretty shocked when Gale appears out of nowhere, crawling under the tree with her.

"Hey," is all he says. She smirks.

"Hey yourself. You're pretty good at tracking, aren't you?" He shrugs.

"Had a lot of practice."

They're silent, and though she really wants to start crying again, she can't now that he's here. After awhile, she gets curious.

"You know, you could still do it," she tells him, begrudgingly. "They need a show."

"I get that the Quell was pretty damn awful for you," he mutters finally, "but it wasn't any picnic for me, either."

Oh, right. Because he'd been in love with Katniss then, and watching her roll around with Peeta in the sand probably brings up all kinds of happy memories.

"What the hell did you see in her?" she asks, before she can stop herself. Damn, she's been trying to be a little more polite in front of Gale. Too late now, she supposes.

"An escape," he answers. At least he's honest. "She's smart and she makes me laugh, but what I really saw was an escape from my life."

She nods. She's never had a lot of sympathy in the past, mostly because she's pretty jealous he even had people to take care of. But it can't have been all fun.

"An escape would be nice," is all she says. It would.

"I can't stop seeing Prim's face," he whispers. He's pale. Just as haunted as she is.

She shrugs.

"You kill a few more kids and you kinda get over it," she tells him, even though it's a downright lie. And, for the first time with him, her bravado sounds false. He knows it's a lie.

"I killed a few hundred," he reminds her. "I'm not getting over it. But you keep telling yourself that."

"At least you can't see their faces," she snaps at him. "Sure, you remember Prim, but try being forced to kill kids in an arena, or lead year after year of underfed girls to their deaths. You think you have it rough? I can never, ever stop seeing their faces in my mind. Ever. I mentored a 15-year-old girl I grew up with who had a boyfriend in my grade. They would've had beautiful children, but instead, she got chopped to bits and he hung himself the next day. You think you know _anything_ about death? About setting traps? Try helping Finnick and Plutarch plan an escape from the arena that can't possibly save you, and then find yourself alive when you wish more than anything you were dead. Try—"  
"I do wish more than anything I was dead!" he bursts out. There are tears on his face. She probably should've been gentler, but she doesn't do gentle real well. "I can't do this, I don't know how to keep doing this!"

"Join the club," she mutters. She wants to scream but she feels like this is heavier than a screaming match she knows she would win. She doesn't want him to be here, trying to seek comfort or comfort her or whatever the hell he's doing. "You're a Victor, Gale. The minute that bomb went off, you became a Victor. Welcome to our arena of hell. Once you enter the Games, you're never, ever done being a tribute."

He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. It's the first moment since he sat down that she sees how gorgeous he is. She's attracted to him, no doubt about it, but until this moment, she's never felt like she wanted it to go anywhere between them. She always felt like he belonged to Katniss: to some extent, he always would. But Katniss is far away, undoubtedly being wooed by the boy, and he's here, with her.

"Do you ever forgive yourself?" He asks so quietly she's not sure he wants to hear the answer. She gives it to him anyways.

"No," she says, quietly but firmly. "You never do. None of us ever has."

"So, what'd you do?" He's looking at her for answers, and she has a moment of feeling angry that he's here because he's seeking comfort, not to comfort her. But when the hell has she ever needed to be comforted or taken care of?

"Well, I generally throw weapons and stare people down a lot. I either drink coffee so I don't sleep or drink booze so I pass out and don't dream. I also tend to run away whenever there's water. "

She says this all in a casual, conversational tone, but she knows he sees her shaking. _What does she do?_

"If you're asking how I survive as a Victor, that's a really stupid question."

She hadn't meant to sound quite so callous, but she can't help it. "The boy told me you were smarter than you look, so I'm guessing that's not what you're asking."

He sighs, but she sees the hint of a smile playing on his face. Some part of her that she thought was long gone, destroyed by Snow and the other sadistic Capitol bastards, gives a gentle flutter at the fact that she can make him smile. She's left wondering what else she can get him to do, and if she would get these strange butterflies in her stomach from making him laugh.

"Peeta said I was smarter than I look? You sure you're not confusing me with someone who…I dunno, likes me?"

She smirks at him arrogantly. "I'm always sure."

There's the Johanna Mason she recognizes.

"I'm asking…how do you escape?"

There's a silence that feels uncomfortable, because she's desperately seeking an answer he wants to hear. She feels like they were starting to turn a corner from hopeless despair into something that might help them get on their feet, however temporarily. But she's got nothing: she doesn't escape. Nothing ever makes her forget the fear or the pain or the…

"I don't," she whispers, finally. "I…I have no idea how to escape. I'm as trapped as you are."

He sighs, leaning against the tree. The same part of her that liked his smile flickers with excitement at how close he is.

"I just want out," he sighs. "Just for a minute."

"A minute?" she asks incredulously. "Hell, I'd settle for ten seconds."

She sees a spark of something in his eyes, something devious. For a moment, he is a mischievous little boy. It's a good look on him (though, then again, isn't _everything_ a good look on him?)

"I can think of one way to escape," he suggests, his hand sliding onto her leg. The glint in his eyes tells her he's kidding. She doesn't let herself wonder how she'd feel if he wasn't. Instead, she raises an eyebrow at him.

"Please tell me you'd last more than ten seconds."

His smirk wavers, but only for an instant. "Only one way for you to know, isn't there?" he teases.

She throws back her head and laughs, and realizes, in that moment, that somehow, Gale Hawthorne is her friend.

**Reviews make me smile. **


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